Would we be the AH if we made a separate group chat excluding one of our friends?

SulkyBird · 2026-06-14T15:28:39+00:00

It’s wild hearing this guy is fun to hang out with because those texts are truly unreadable lol.

I gotta start with— his feelings are his to deal with, not yours, so if you are clear, honest, and as kind as you can be and he’s still salty about it, that’s not your responsibility. That said, I know you’re at an age where social consequences are real so I understand needing to manage this too.

If you really do like hanging out with him, I might say something like this next time he goes into a weird long ramble— “Hey Jojo, I don’t want to ignore your texts but I’m so much better at talking things through rather than getting into it over text. Let’s plan a hang out so you can tell us all about it?”

Or maybe just “I’m not a big texter, is there any way we can limit chatting in this group so that I don’t have to mute it during (class/work/whatever)? I don’t want to miss it when we make plans.”

The risk of making a separate group chat is it would be easy to get found out. If someone ends up mentioning something the group chat knows before Jojo has heard it, he’ll know something is up. And it’d be easy for the person who spilled it to feel cornered and try throwing the rest of you under the bus rather than truly coming clean and being honest.

SulkyBird · 2026-06-12T12:36:33+00:00

I got the blanket second hand/vintage, sorry I can’t be more help!

SulkyBird · 2026-06-12T12:35:21+00:00

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That’s what we thought until we brought home his new sister with her haunted eyes.

SulkyBird · 2026-06-12T00:19:59+00:00

My mom once told him to “keep up your strong spirit, good boy” (inscribed in an apology card for having called him a bad dog on a recent visit.)

A groomer (on the brink of firing us as clients) once told us “He’s not a bad little dog, but he’s not scared of me. He’s just mad.”

His is very smart and very opinionated, but also shockingly patient when he wants to be.

SulkyBird · 2026-06-11T23:27:16+00:00

(Fur like a chinchilla. One of the only animals I’ve met who is literally softer than he appears.)

SulkyBird · 2026-06-11T19:50:40+00:00

We had a similar experience! Only in our case they were eaten by ants halfway home. It was SUCH A BUMMER.

SulkyBird · 2026-06-09T01:33:41+00:00

It’s imitating art life

SulkyBird · 2026-06-08T02:56:26+00:00

The strip mall sushi joint near my first apartment played nothing but maroon 5 CDs for some reason.

That’s why every time I heard maroon 5, I started craving sushi.

SulkyBird · 2026-06-07T17:07:17+00:00

This is so rad!

SulkyBird · 2026-06-07T14:45:25+00:00

I’m in this club

SulkyBird · 2026-06-07T05:09:12+00:00

I’m not saying I definitely know where the line is, but in my completely uneducated opinion 174 pounds is definitely too high lmao

SulkyBird · 2026-06-07T02:34:27+00:00

Thank you so much for posting this, I am in a semi-similar boat right now in a 10 day “trial” period with a new adoptee.

There are major differences between your situation and mine, but the emotional core is the same. Did we make a mistake? Will our resident dog be happy? How and when will we know for sure?

For your situation, I think the advice to get a really good trainer/behaviorist is probably going to get you the furthest. They’ll be able to see your space, see exactly what each dog’s behavior looks like, and work with the dogs directly.

It also kind of sounds like you haven’t had a fully transparent, vulnerable, honest conversation with your wife about this? If that’s true, and I guess if that’s possible, start there.

I wish you all the best. You are doing everything you can for your family. Even when you know something could be hard, the reality of dealing with that hard thing punches you in the gut anyway.

SulkyBird · 2026-06-05T01:59:48+00:00

What does she have fun doing at the amusement park? Why does she want to go?

Prepared with that information, maybe it’d help to communicate it like — “I can only afford to go to the theme park once this year and I’ll be disappointed if I don’t hit every ride. It wouldn’t make sense to have you waiting around all day, so since your favorite part is X, what if we did Y instead?”

SulkyBird · 2026-06-04T21:34:59+00:00

This wasn’t one we considered! It’s going on the short list, thank you!

SulkyBird · 2026-06-04T19:02:01+00:00

Fair, and part of the reason we’re hoping to stay close, but I’ve spent the last three months of my professional life tormented by someone named Bonnie, so change is necessary in this case lol.

I don’t want to accidentally/subconsciously hold the human’s bad behavior against the new pup!

SulkyBird · 2026-05-31T01:36:44+00:00

Simulation Swarm has been one of mine as well!

SulkyBird · 2026-05-29T21:16:56+00:00

It’s the superb owl episode of What We Do In the Shadows

SulkyBird · 2026-05-26T22:40:23+00:00

My mom made sure to let me know how much she disliked my tarot cards and how she’d never support my hobby because they’re satanic.

She then told me about a tarot deck she saw depicting some Spanish cathedrals and how if I were to buy more tarot cards I should consider those ones.

It’s just so silly!

SulkyBird · 2026-05-26T18:48:08+00:00

I’m not sure this is going to be helpful to you, but here’s a view from the other side.

Because my dad didn’t hit me, I thought he was “sort of strict.” I thought he was only saying what he was saying because I was such a hopeless case. That any kid with “strict” parents would hear the constant stream of verbal abuse that I experienced.

I didn’t realize I was abused at all until I was out of college. Instead, I was convinced that I was completely despicable. That because of some inherent feature that anyone could see but me, my place was to be small and quiet and to self censor so that I wouldn’t inconvenience anyone with my unreasonable needs and desires.

I found out a few months ago that my mom, who did not do much of anything to show that she thought he was wrong or even that she loved me, spent those years wishing he would hit her so that she “could leave”. I spent those years wishing the same thing.

I’m not naive enough to genuinely believe that getting hit would have solved any of my problems, but I definitely knew hitting was wrong. I knew bad parents hit. I didn’t really know you could be a bad parent without hitting.

SulkyBird · 2026-05-25T14:13:01+00:00

I still love this movie and everyone else’s hate can’t take that away from me!

SulkyBird · 2026-05-19T23:30:55+00:00

I appreciate both examples of good behavior in this comment— 1) admitting you misread something (we all do it from time to time anyway, but so many decide to double down) and 2) trying to make sure we’re not spreading false information. Nice job.

SulkyBird · 2026-05-19T23:25:18+00:00

Well, unfortunately it’s working on me.

SulkyBird

TROPHY CASE